Vice President's Remarks to the Central Command, Special Operations Command, and the 6th Air Mobility Wing
Macdill Air Force Base Theater
Macdill Air Force Base, Florida

2:33 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Admiral, thank you for the
introduction and thank you all for being here this afternoon and letting me
come spend a little bit of time with all of you.

I count it a privilege to be with the men and women of Central Command, the
Special Operations Command, and the 6th Air Mobility Wing. I also want to
recognize a distinguished member of Congress here today, my old friend and
colleague Bill Young. Bill, it's good to see you here this afternoon.
(Applause.)

I know from my own experience that Bill's many, many years of service since
I believe 1971 in the United States Congress, but he spent most of that
time on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. And when I was Secretary,
he was one of my closest allies on Capitol Hill, and he's still performing
that same magnificent function today looking out for the forces, making
certain that we have the resources we need to defend the nation.

I've been looking forward, as always, to coming down for a briefing and
spend a little time with Fox and the command here at CENTCOM and SOCOM and
I appreciate the chance to say a few words to all of you as well.

I want to thank everyone who helped out in arranging the visit, especially
Admiral Olson and Admiral Fallon. And in the company of so many fine
officers, I want to say a public word of thanks to a man who is not here
today -- but who is well known to all of you and who is doing a terrific
job -- General Dave Petraeus.

Let me also thank the officers from other nations here today -- in
particular the spokesman for our coalition partners represented in Tampa,
Brigadier General Arne Skjaerpe from Norway. We display many flags here at
CENTCOM, and proudly so. More than 20 nations have deployed troops to a
region of responsibility that stretches from Kazakhstan to Kenya. Together
we've undertaken missions that are difficult and sensitive -- and also
vital to the safety of our peoples, and to peace and stability far beyond.
The United States appreciates your friendship. Our military is honored to
stand with all of you.

We share the goal of confronting and defeating an enemy that threatens all
civilized countries -- an enemy who rejects the rules of warfare, who
disdains any code of honor, and who considers mercy and respect for
innocent life to be signs of weakness. This enemy faces us not in the form
of a nation state with an army and a navy, but rather in cabals of
extremists who plot in secret and move in the shadows. They've inflicted
great harm and they have a taste for more.

All this makes your work extremely urgent. CENTCOM has the area
responsibility for two major fronts of the war on terror. And SOCOM has
the lead in our fight against the terrorists. A lot of you have taken your
turn in battle and I know would like to be there now. I realize it's not
always satisfying to be here in Florida while your comrades are in the
field. But your experiences have given you the knowledge to draw the plans
and think of the tactics that we need in order to prevail in this very
tough fight. You get up every morning and spend your day focused on
protecting your fellow citizens.

The nation depends on you, and we're in your debt. We are also indebted to
your loved ones -- and on behalf of the President, I send respects to them
as well. Military families don't take an oath, but they're every bit as
committed to the good of this nation, and they're a consistent, daily
example of service above self. We can never thank them enough.

Last evening, as I know many of you saw, the President reported to the
nation on the status of our operations in Iraq. Up in Washington we'll
continue to have debates about Iraq and broader national security policy,
as we should. Tough work lies ahead. But the evidence from a theater of
war 6,000 miles away in my mind is beyond question: The troop surge has
achieved some solid results, and in a relatively short period of time.
General Petraeus and the troops under his command are doing an absolutely
fantastic job, and the whole nation is proud of them.

Many of those serving today, of course, were not yet members of the
military on September 11th, 2001. Some were inspired to join precisely
because of what happened that morning. And it's no exaggeration to say
that our world really did change six years ago. For most of this nation's
history we had been spared from attack inside our borders. But in a
violent world, the safety of distance was suddenly gone. We saw how a
small group of men, in a conspiracy formed thousands of miles away, could
slip into our country, kill Americans by the thousands, and reduce tall
buildings to 16 acres of ashes. And we had to contemplate an even worse
prospect -- that terrorists might acquire weapons of mass destruction and
turn them against the United States.

With grave new dangers directly in view, the strategic situation changed
fundamentally. The first thing we had to understand was that on 9/11,
America was not merely the victim of a crime. We were a sovereign nation
under attack, entitled to defend ourselves, and obligated to confront and
defeat this enemy. We had to understand, as well, not just the ambitions
of the enemy, but the kind of response they expect from us. Their goal is
to frighten us, to break our will through acts of spectacular violence --
to hit us again and again until we run away.

They've chosen this method because they believe it works, and they believe
the history of the late 20th century proves their point. During the 1980s
and '90s, as terror networks began to wage attacks against Americans, there
was a tendency to treat those attacks as isolated incidents. And those
acts were answered, if at all, on an ad hoc basis, with subpoenas,
criminal indictments, and the occasional cruise missile. As time passed,
the terrorists concluded they could hit America with very little
consequence, and change American policy with bigger targets and a higher
body count. And so their attacks became more ambitious and more deadly.

In Beirut in 1983, terrorists killed 241 of our servicemen. Thereafter, the
U.S. withdrew from Beirut. In Mogadishu in 1993, terrorists killed 19
Americans; thereafter, the U.S. withdrew from Somalia. This emboldened
them still further, confirming their belief that they could strike America
without paying a price and be able to change our policies. Indeed they did
strike, and indeed they did not pay the price.

We had the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in 1993; an attack
on U.S. facilities in Riyadh in 1995; the attack on Khobar Towers in 1996;
the attack on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; and, of course,
the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Ultimately, of course, they attacked
the homeland on 9/11 and took the lives of 3,000 people aboard passenger
jets, at the World Trade Center, and in the Pentagon.

The terrorists have been at war with the United States for a long time.
And after 9/11 this nation made a decision: We are at war with them. This
is a long-term commitment, not a passing issue. There will be no running,
or relenting, until the problem has been dealt with -- decisively,
systematically, and permanently.

We've gone on the offensive, destroying safe havens, targeting their
leadership, restricting their movements, closing off their money channels,
infiltrating their operations, monitoring their communications, and working
in dead earnest to stop the proliferation of catastrophic weapons. This
new imperative has laid some very important work on many shoulders, from
homeland security, to intelligence operations, to law enforcement. But no
one carries a heavier burden than the war fighter, who engages the enemy on
his own ground and slugs it out in tough conditions for the sake of freedom
and the sake of our security here at home.

As the prime target of the terrorists, America has also enforced a doctrine
that is essential to our own safety, and to eventual victory in this
struggle. It is simple to state and understood by all: Governments that
support or harbor terrorists are complicit in the murder of the innocent,
and they must be held to account. That's a significant commitment to make.
Some may question whether we mean it -- but the doubters do not include
the members of the Taliban.

With good allies at our side, we took down the terror regime in
Afghanistan, and we have aided the rise of a free government in that
nation. There is still hard work and tough fighting there. We have lost
soldiers in Afghanistan nearly every month since going in almost six years
ago. Right now, with more than 20,000 troops on the ground, together with
more than 20,000 personnel from other nations, we are continuing to
prosecute our objectives.

But the United States is not a fair-weather friend. When we took down the
terrorist supporting regime, liberating the Afghan people from tyranny,
we promised to help them build something better. Success there is
essential to security around the world, and to lasting peace in our world.
The war on terror does not have to be endless. But to prevail in the long
run, we must remove the conditions that inspire such blind, prideful hatred
that drove 19 men to climb on airplanes and come to kill us.

We know from history that when people live in freedom, when they have their
rights respected, and they have real hope for the future, they will not be
drawn to ideologies of hatred and violence. We know, as well, that when
men and women are given the chance, most by far will choose to live in
freedom.

Tyranny in Afghanistan was worth deposing. Democracy in Afghanistan is
worth defending. And the same is true in Iraq.

More than four years ago, we enforced the demands of the civilized world
and ended the long, squalid career of Saddam Hussein. And having removed
the dictator, we promised not to let another tyrant rise in his place. For
their own part, most Iraqis have had their fill of violence and despair,
and want only to get on with life in a peaceful country. They have turned
out in large numbers in national elections, ratifying the most progressive
constitution in the Arab world, bearing up with extraordinary courage
against random violence and threats and refusing to be intimidated by
killers.

Still, Iraqi society continues to suffer the effects of a generation of
tyrannical rule. There are those who wonder why free Iraq hasn't yet
produced a single, unifying figure like a Hamid Karzai or a Nelson Mandela.
The problem, as President Bush pointed out recently, is that the Nelson
Mandelas of Iraq are scarce, "because Saddam Hussein made sure that if they
didn't escape the country, they were dead."

But Iraq is a great nation of more than 25 million people who want what we
want -- security, peace, and the right to chart their own destiny. And
right now they face attack from violent extremists who want to drag that
nation back into the darkness. We are helping Iraqis fight back because it
is the right thing to do -- and because the outcome will have a direct
impact on the security of the United States.

The al Qaeda network that struck America is one of the elements now
interested in destroying Iraq's democracy -- and Osama bin Laden and his
lieutenants regard it as a critical front in their war against us. Their
goal is to make us run -- in the process abandoning our friends, permitting
the overthrow of a democracy, and allowing a country of 170,000 square
miles to be a staging area for attacks against America and our allies. The
terrorists are betting that Americans will grow tired, distracted, and
weak. I believe that's a bet the terrorists are going to lose.

Ladies and gentlemen, the United States and our coalition are getting
things right in Iraq. It's taken a good deal of time, and we've endured
setbacks. Although our military performed admirably and continued to do
everything we asked of them, 2006, I think everyone knows, was a difficult
year. Al Qaeda terrorists wanted to accelerate sectarian violence, and
they carried out that plan with ferocity. Many Iraqis doubted the ability
of their government to provide basic protection or to deliver basic
services. The security situation in Baghdad got worse instead of better.
And in Anbar province, a huge area to the west of Baghdad, a U.S. military
intelligence report declared the entire region was lost to al Qaeda.

Against that background, President Bush announced a new strategy to bring
security to the population, to clear terrorists out of their strongholds so
local governments could function, to give Iraqi security forces time to
grow and improve and to provide the breathing room necessary for political
reconciliation.

General Petraeus asked for reinforcements and we sent them an
additional five brigades, to a full force of 160,000 troops. The operating
assumption of the troop surge has been that basic security is a
precondition for other progress. And providing that security has been our
overriding goal.

As General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker told Congress this week, the
challenge remains formidable. The situation, in the General's words, is
"complex, difficult, and sometimes downright frustrating." Yet, as he and
the Ambassador also made clear, conditions in Iraq are changing for the
better, and we are seizing the initiative from the enemy.

Since January even before the troop surge took effect -- each month
our forces have captured or killed an average of about 1,500 al Qaeda
terrorists and other enemies of the elected government. Coalition forces
have struck hard against extremists and supply networks; seized caches of
enemy weapons; and conducted operations against extremists supported by
Iran -- a country whose paramilitary organization traffics in lethal
material. And in the areas where we've cleared out the terrorists and
militias, we've surged our diplomatic and civilian resources -- because
it's critical that military success be followed quickly by real
improvements in the lives of ordinary citizens.

And more and more, we're getting locals into the fight against those
extremists. In Anbar province our military has done careful, painstaking
work to confront the killers and to build confidence in the general
population. They've been assisted by Iraqi forces -- and, most
significantly, by local tribal leaders who've had enough of the mindless
brutality of al Qaeda. We have driven al Qaeda from Ramadi and other
population centers in Anbar.

President Bush himself visited the province last week, and assured local
and national leaders that we're going to keep the pressure on the enemy in
Anbar. It's still dangerous in the province, and just yesterday, of
course, terrorists killed one of the sheikhs who had been in the fight
against al Qaeda and had met with the President just last week. But that
fight goes on, and America's support will not waver.

At the same time, General Petraeus is using reinforcements from the surge
to bring similar progress to other parts of Iraq. This, also, is yielding
results. In Baghdad, for example, the security environment is far better
than a year ago. American and Iraqi forces are patrolling and living among
the people they protect, and that's helped to build confidence in the
neighborhoods. As Major General Rick Lynch put it, our forces are "not
commuting to work; we're out there with the local citizens to let them know
they're going to be secure, and as a result of that, they come to us with
all sorts of actionable intelligence."

In the middle of a war, it's hard to overstate the importance of good
intelligence. Nor can one overstate the difficulty of obtaining such
information. But the first question in the mind of a source is whether he
can trust you, or whether you're going to turn your back on him. In a news
briefing General Lynch put it this way: "We get to an area, the first
question the locals ask is, 'Are you staying?' And once they're convinced
we're staying, the question then becomes, 'How can we help?'" This year,
the General said, "we've seen an interesting shift. Iraqi citizens are
coming to us to provide information. These citizens are talking about what
they've heard and about any activity that jeopardizes the rebuilding of
their country."

This, too, is another sign of the progress we've been able to make inside
Iraq. The locals have begun to see that America's commitment is real and
it is lasting. They've begun to see that the United States is a nation
that follows through on a pledge and that the President of the
United States is a man of his word.

The President has made clear that America will do its part to keep Iraq on
the road of freedom, security, and progress. And as the President said
last night, Iraq's national leaders are getting some things done. They've
passed a budget. They are sharing oil revenues with provinces now. The
Shia majority is showing more willingness to bring Sunnis, even former
Baathists, into the military and civilian programs. And we expect Iraq's
national government to press much harder in the work of national
reconciliation, to match the kind of cooperation now taking place at the
local and provincial levels.

We'll continue, as well, our intensive effort to train Iraqi security
forces, so that over time Iraqis can take the lead in protecting their
people. Progress has been uneven at times and the National Police
especially needs improvement. But Iraq's army is becoming more capable.
And because there's now a greater degree of cooperation from local
populations, Iraqi forces are better able to keep the peace in areas that
have been cleared of extremists.

For that reason, as the President told the nation last night, General
Petraeus believes we've reached the point where we can expect the same
level of security with fewer American forces in some parts of Iraq. It now
appears that when an Expeditionary Unit of about 2,200 Marines leaves Anbar
in two weeks, we won't need American forces to replace them. The General
has also determined that at the current rate of success, we'll be able to
withdraw a full Army brigade by the end of this year. He expects, as well,
that by July, we'll be able to reduce our troop levels in Iraq from 20
combat brigades to 15.

President Bush has accepted the recommendations on troop levels, as well as
the General's plan for the next phase of our strategy in Iraq. Starting in
December, American forces will begin to transfer responsibility to Iraqi
forces in a manner that is designed to preserve security and maintain the
upper hand over the enemy.

As advances are made against the terrorists and civil society grows
stronger, the Iraqis will have more responsibility for security -- and our
mission in the country will evolve. Going forward, American forces will go
from leading operations to partnering with Iraqi forces to, eventually,
overwatching those forces. Our troops will continue countering terrorism
and training and equipping Iraqi forces. Further drawdowns in our military
presence will depend on conditions inside the country, and on the
recommendations from our people in the field, General Petraeus and
Ambassador Crocker. In any event, President Bush will make his decisions
based on the national interest and nothing else -- not by artificial
measures, not based on political calculations, and not based on the polls.

The United States is keeping its commitments, and persevering despite
difficulty, because we understand the consequences of getting out before
the job is done. A precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would validate al
Qaeda's belief that we lack the stomach for the fight, that we lack the
patience to complete a mission even when it's in our clear national
security interest. A contagion of violence would likely spread beyond
Iraq's borders, and much of the effort that's gone into fighting the global
war on terror would be dissipated.

Those of us in positions of responsibility cannot and will not ignore the
plain and foreseeable effects of abandoning our mission. America has
accepted a duty that is hard, and honorable, and worth completing. General
Petraeus and his troops, all of you here at CENTCOM, are doing the right
thing, in the right way, and at the right time. Your success will make our
nation more secure. Let us make certain that we all stand behind them in
victory.

The course we have chosen is not an easy one for America. But it will be
far easier on the conscience of America when we see it through, sparing
millions from suffering, and leaving behind a free and democratic Iraq.
And the credit will belong to all of you and to your comrades. Many of
your successes don't make it to the front page or the evening news, and
some of your good work won't come to light until years down the road. But
some of us do know, and we're filled with admiration and with gratitude.
We don't take you for granted one single day or one single hour.

Six years ago, in the aftermath of tragedy, we began a long struggle to
preserve our freedom and defend our way of life. Today, with boots on the
ground 6,000 miles away, the history of that struggle is still in the
making. I, for one, am confident in the outcome. Americans are not the
sort to wait on events, or to live at the mercy of the violent. We do not
sit and hope for the best -- we can see a better day for ourselves and all
humanity, and we strive to achieve it.

We have shown a watching world that we are a good and just nation: secure
in our ideals, fearless in their defense, and willing to sacrifice greatly
for the cause of long-term peace. We will press on in our mission, and
turn events toward victory.

I leave today just as I came -- with utmost respect and gratitude for the
men and women of CENTCOM and MacDill for our good allies in this fight and
for the Silent Professionals of the Special Operations Command.